


The Diary of Christine Daae

by inlaterdays



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Phantom of the Opera (2004)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 09:02:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 9,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2502122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlaterdays/pseuds/inlaterdays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first fanfic I ever wrote. Originally posted to Aria and FFN. Post-2004 movie; Raoul is jealous and wants Christine to retrieve the ring he gave to her. She finds more than she bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Engagement, Not a Crime

Paris, 1871

I am driven to commit to paper that which I dare not reveal in public, but which occupies my thoughts both night and day. Once I have completed my tale, I intend to conceal this manuscript and speak portions of the truth to a few carefully chosen individuals. May the rest be lost to history.

I wish that my story had a simple, happy ending: "Reader, I married him," or "They lived happily ever after." But such uncomplicated finales are for books. Real life is more complicated by far, as I have recently learned to my joy and sorrow.

For too long I lived in a sheltered, fairytale world. Although I am in my late teens and of marriageable age, I lived in the dream world of the Paris Opera House for 11 years. Actresses and women on the stage may have a reputation for improper behavior, but for those of us in the Ballet Corps, the life was more like that in a convent.

Rising early – lessons – practice – more lessons – rehearsals – fittings – routines, and always keeping to a strict schedule – then to bed early, exhausted by the day's efforts. Life was especially constrained for the younger members of the Corps, like Meg Giry and I, who fell at all times under the watchful eye of Mme Giry, Meg's mother.

Raoul took me away from all that. Away from home, from a life on the stage…and away from him. I thought that was what I wanted. I thought that was all I wanted. I was convinced of it.

Until it became a reality.

Raoul is a good man. Honest, brave, kind, and generous. But his experience of the world has been so vastly different from mine (which has really amounted to no experience at all), that, in hindsight, some problems were inevitable.

I had the first inkling that all was not well in my world; that my soul was now divided, in Raoul's carriage immediately after the Opera House fire.

We had escaped from the burning building to a scene of chaos and confusion. Not only was the Opera House on fire, but Paris was a city in the middle of a great uprising, and currently at war with itself. People were running in all directions, shouting, screaming, firing shots. The Fire Brigade had been called but the Opera House still burned.

Raoul's main thought was to get me as far away as possible. He was soaked to the skin, the wound on his shoulder had opened again, and I was still wearing the Phantom's wedding dress. On the outskirts of Paris, Raoul turned to me, and his words were not what I was expecting – but then, people in shock can do and say strange things, I am told.

"Why did you go back?"

At first I was not certain what he meant.

"What? Back where?"

"To him. After he let us go."

"I told you…to give him back his ring."

"That was my ring. Your ring. Ours. The one I gave you."

Until that time, it hadn't occurred to me that R. might be hurt by the gesture. I realized how thoughtless I'd been, and I felt defensive, which was unfair of me.

"I thought he should have a keepsake."

"Whatever for?"

I stared at him. "You have me. He spent countless hours coaching me, training my voice. Was it wrong to give him a token to remember me by?"

His fine jaw tightened. "The man tried to kill me."

"I know." I put my hand on his arm. "I'm so sorry."

We sat in silence for awhile.

"Was it him you were hiding the engagement from?"

It had been. I hadn't known why at the time. I was frightened and confused, and not used to conflicting emotions. I was still frightened and confused.

"Raoul…are you _jealous_?"

"I don't know." Tersely.

"It was wrong of me," I admitted. "But now things are all right, aren't they?"

The cloud on his brow broke, thank heaven, and he looked over at me, his expression full of love and hope once again.

"Yes. Things have never been more right."

I leaned on his shoulder, gently, and he kissed the top of my head. He was smiling again, and my mood lifted. We continued to drive out to the country, to his mother's chateau, but a tiny seed of worry had entered my mind.


	2. Let's Not Argue

Raoul's mother received the two of us graciously, especially considering the state we arrived in. R.'s wound was tended to and we were both fed and bathed. I was put to bed in a magnificent room with a warm fire; R. stayed up talking to his family late into the night.

It soon developed that R.'s family did not completely approve of our match. I wished he had told me that at the time we had become engaged. Apparently a childhood infatuation with a musician's daughter was one thing, but marriage to an opera girl was quite another. As his family and I became reacquainted over the next three months, however, friendship bloomed, and I was most fortunate that they accepted me for myself.

I should have been blissfully content. Part of me was serenely happy and truly wanted to make Raoul happy, but part of me yearned everlastingly for that magical darkness on the shore of the underground lake; that place lit by a thousand candles where a man with everything to lose had sung his heart out for me.

I had not expected this. I had expected to be able to walk away and not look back.

Nor was I the only one whose thoughts the Phantom occupied. Raoul continued to press me with questions – at first just now and then, but later, incessantly.

"Tell me more about these private singing lessons," he had demanded one afternoon.

"There's nothing to tell that I haven't told. I never saw him until after the night of the gala."

"When I heard him in your dressing room." Bitterly.

"Yes."

"I wanted you to come to supper with me."

"I told you I couldn't go." I had begun to have my suspicions about that initial supper invitation. I wondered whether it had originally been marriage on his mind at all.

"Yes, but why did you go with _him_?"

"Is he always to be between us? I don't know! He's…mesmerizing. I was curious."

"Mesmerizing! And then you met him in the cemetery."

"Not by design on my part!"

"You were walking towards him."

"I was. It was all mixed up in my mind: my father, his spirit, the angel, the Phantom, my teacher. I was confused."

"And are you still confused?"

"Why do you ask me such questions? I'm here – with _you_."

"Yet you chose him."

"To save your life!"

"I wonder."

I looked at him in shock. I had to concentrate in order to calm my feelings.

"That was unworthy of you," I said, finally.

He apologized then. After every row of this nature, he'd be repentant, and we'd go out, or walk in the gardens, and things would be as before.

Except that every time R. questioned me, my own doubts grew deeper.

And every night, I cried in secrecy and in silence for the angel who no longer sang me to sleep…but who still haunted my dreams.


	3. The Prison of My Mind

My dreams had changed drastically in nature, but the main figure was always the same. That obscure object of fear, desire, and temptation had altered from an ethereal angel, a voice in the darkness, to a voice clothed with the warm and solid flesh of a very real man. Him. The Phantom. My mentor, friend, and guide, and most lately and surprisingly, my suitor.

He troubled me. He troubled Raoul. He troubled nearly everyone he came in contact with, and yet it was impossible not to think of him.

I often dreamed of fire. Of candles. Of the set of _Don Juan_ , of the real, terrible, fire that had followed, and of the fire of passion – something I had very little real idea about.

He was always there, though. Always. Masked, unmasked; even at times (to my shame) unclothed, though I had never seen him so.

I never dreamed of Raoul.

I told myself that this was because I saw him nearly every day, and had no need to see him in my dreams. But I wondered.

And when, after a few months at the chateau, I began to dream of the warmth and heat of kisses and caresses…those were the Phantom's, too, though I had had but few. Raoul's daylight embraces began to pale in comparison.

This bothered me, a great deal, as well it might.

Finally, I could stand it no more. Surely the heightened emotion of the time, my inexperience, my fears about the upcoming wedding and my new life, and the thoughts which tormented me were combining to make the Phantom take on more importance to me than he actually had.

I had already decided to put paid once and for all to these foolish romantic fantasies of mine – for so they surely were – when the storm that had been threatening with Raoul broke. I do not wish to record the details, but suffice it to say that, if I had caused him pain in the past, he repaid me, however unintentionally. He was unwilling to believe that I had given up his ring in remembrance of anything less than a consummated affair. This was not only unjust, but I was all the angrier for having had guilty thoughts about exactly that, something that, at the time, I did not want to admit even to myself.

The solution seemed obvious. I told Raoul that I missed my old friends. Since political matters in Paris had cooled off over the previous month, he very understandingly packed me off to visit the Girys, who were delighted to receive Raoul's letter. In truth, we both needed time to think.

In his anger, he had told me that, in order to prove my love, I would have to return his ring to him. In my anger, I told him that I'd gladly do exactly that if I knew where it was. He kissed me as I left, and sheepishly told me to disregard his unreasonable request. I told him not to worry.

Seeing the Girys was a breath of fresh air. After the fire, Meg and her mother had settled in a small yet comfortable house not too far from the site of the old Opera House. Mme Giry was giving private dancing lessons, and Meg had been accepted to the Corps de Ballet for the new Opera House, which was currently under construction.

We toured the site of the new building – which was to be even grander than the last, though I'd not have believed it possible – and had spent many happy hours reminiscing and getting caught up, when I finally asked the question that had long been uppermost in my mind.

"What became of – him?"

Meg and Mme Giry exchanged glances. They knew immediately whom I meant.

"You heard he had escaped from the mobs and disappeared?" Meg asked tentatively.

I said that I had. That much had penetrated to me in my retreat.

Meg appeared about to say something, but –

"No one has heard from him since," Mme Giry said, and would say no more.

I could see that I was going to have to find a solution to the doubts and questions with which I now assailed myself daily on my own. That, or never know another moment's peace.


	4. The Silent Role

I still don't know how I had the courage to do it.

The initial idea was Meg's – she was always braver than I. We had been talking, as usual, late into the night (a practice which made Mme Giry shake her head; but she allowed us much more freedom than she had in the old days), when Meg fell quiet.

Finally, she said, "If you really want to get into the old Opera House, I can think of a method. But it will be dangerous. That entire area is dangerous now."

"Tell me," I begged, and she did, though hesitantly.

The following day, Meg and I went out shopping. We purchased some secondhand boys' clothes from a rag-and-bone man, passing them off as a gift for the poor. We also purchased a waterproof box of matches and a folding pocket-knife. As we had many parcels that day, these went unremarked by Mme Giry.

On the next night when there was no moon, I stayed awake until long after the rest of the household was fast asleep. I dressed myself in the boys' clothes we had purchased, tucking my long hair up under a cap and pulling the brim down over my face. The matches and knife went into my pocket, along with one of the spare candles from the drawer of the bedside table.

Cautiously I crept down the stairs, being careful to make no noise, and let myself out. Once outside, I smudged my face and hands with dirt so that my clean white skin would not be remarked. Nice girls of decent breeding, especially those engaged to Vicomtes, did not go abroad at night, alone and on foot.

Except for this one. I was desperate to get Raoul's ring back, to prove my love to him, and to myself, and to put to rest my fancies and imaginings. A dose of reality was what I was in search of, but reality does not always provide the answers we expect.

I moved quickly and silently, keeping to the shadow; no one remarked me. Just another street urchin. I kept the pocketknife open and one hand clenched around it, in case I met with any trouble. I was nearly fainting with fear, but tried to move as if I belonged there.

I managed to avoid other people, who were mainly about their own business of drunkenness and debauchery; the fighting of a few months prior was thankfully over, for now, and the mood of the populace was generally subdued.

Presently, I arrived at the burnt-out shell of the Opera House.

I felt tears start into my eyes at the sight of it. What a terrible change in the place I had called home for more than a decade. And he had done this – though I somehow felt that Raoul and I had been partly to blame. It was all so wrong.

I don't know what I was expecting to find. In those days I was not in the habit of examining the motivations or reasons behind my feelings; I just acted. Whatever my expectations, however, the sight of the Opera House would have been a shock.

In the old days, she was a living thing – full of light and warmth; color and movement. Her light was darkened now; her frame cold and still. No matter how splendid the new Opera House was to be, it could never replace this one in my heart.

The main front doors and some of the windows were boarded up, but it would have been impossible to block every manner of ingress. I kept away from the openings which were obviously in use; I knew that there would be strays living inside, both animal and human, and I realized that such desperate creatures would be best avoided.

I found a blocked-up window near the old stable entrance, pried off the boards with the help of the knife, and slipped inside.

Darkness. I let my eyes adjust to the gloom, deeper than that of the moonless night outside.

The interior landscape was much changed, but I found familiar landmarks and made my way gradually to Carlotta's old dressing room.

The dressing room was in shambles. Most of the furniture was gone – looted or broken up for firewood, presumably. The wallpaper was peeling and in tatters; yet the room, even in decay, maintained some of its former air of luxury and grandeur.

I went to the mirror, my heart beating quickly in my chest. I half-expected him to appear. Only three months ago, yet it seemed a lifetime.

I slid the mirror aside, with some difficulty, for the mechanism stuck; and trod on something which I at first took for a ridge in the carpet, but which, on examination, proved to be a single red rose, withered and faded, with the fragments of a tattered black ribbon still tied around its stem.

How had this remained when so much else was gone or destroyed?

Hardly thinking what I did, I tucked the rose inside my vest and stepped through the mirror.


	5. Down Once More

This route had seemed so magical when the Phantom had first taken me down it. I'd felt as though I were in a dream. That dream had faded, but its echoes haunted me still.

Many of the torches that had used to line the walls were missing, but here and there a few remained. I took one and lit it with the matches from my pocket, in preference to using my candle.

The torch served a double purpose: it lighted my way, and it kept the rats, beetles, and spiders with which the passage was populated at bay. I have a great disgust of such creatures, and will speak no more of them. I managed not to drop the torch.

Meg had told me how to avoid the old traps that the Phantom had set; I jumped over the gap where Raoul had fallen into the water, feeling angry all over again at the indignities he had suffered. The anger fueled my courage.

At length, I found myself at the old dock where the Phantom had used to keep his boat.

The boat was missing.

I felt like a fool. I had not anticipated this, but of course someone had carried it off. The Phantom was surely long gone, his belongings destroyed, and I was wandering around this dark sub-basement in a ruined building for nothing.

My heart failed me. I put the torch in a bracket, sat down, and began to cry.

What on earth was I doing? What had I expected to find? I'm afraid that I spent a good while weeping, feeling sorry for myself, finally facing up to my expectations and fears there in the darkness.

Raoul couldn't have been serious when he had asked me to retrieve the ring. In fact, the last thing he'd told me was not to try. So why had I come? Why had it been such a sore point with him? Or had he been serious, and was the request a way to fid himself of a troublesome fiancée? Was he punishing me for my imagined transgressions? All manner of outlandish doubts assailed me.

Eventually, the storm of tears passed, and I began to realize a few things. Raoul had been correct that my heart had not been completely with him. But he'd been wrong about the reason – at least, I thought he had. I had retreated into dreams and had been distracted even when I was with him.

I was just not sure whether I was cut out to be his Vicomtess; I still wasn't sure, but I was only just now admitting the fact to myself. No matter my feelings for Raoul, the life was greatly different from anything I'd known. I'd expected the adjustment to be easy, and when it proved challenging, I retreated inside myself.

And inside myself – in my heart and mind – was where the Phantom had been since I was a small girl; I could not deny that he occupied my thoughts and dreams. No wonder Raoul suspected things. He wanted me to put those suspicious to rest, and I'd been unable to. I hadn't known what he'd expected from me, and his suspicions had caused me to retreat further. Neither of us had been acting like ourselves lately.

Well. Perhaps I really had been the thoughtless girl I'd been accused of being. But I was here, now, and I still had to deal with the situation I'd put myself in. My mind was more of a labyrinth to me than any series of underground tunnels, but I was beginning to make my way through.

I stood up. I'd started this, and I would see it through to the end.

I took up the torch again, walking down the step of the dock. The dark, murky water was uninviting, but was shallow enough to wade in, I recalled. I sat down on the ledge and slid into the cold water, shuddering and trying not to think of water-rats.

Torch in hand, I made my way to the secret grotto where I'd been taken twice before – each such a different journey.

I was in luck, this time. The portcullis was up.

The harbor itself was in darkness – black as pitch, blacker than any other part of the Opera House. No ray of light at all reached this remote hold save for that of my torch.

The torch began to sputter as I reached the shore, and I hurriedly began to light candle after candle, for I could see their shapes in the gloom…

…and I looked around me in wonder.

This kingdom, this tiny world, had been left undisturbed. Everything was covered by a thick layer of dust; a few of the draperied were damaged by the damp or in tatters, but not a thing had been touched. Not a thing was missing – except for the Phantom himself.

Why had nothing been taken? I knew that the mob had penetrated this far – Meg had told me as much. Did they have some superstitious fear about disturbing the lair of the famous Opera Ghost? I had assumed, from Meg's story, that he had been in hiding – he knew so many secret routes and tunnels – but had returned when the pursuers left.

But everything clearly had not been in use for some time. Where had he gone? Oh, God – was he even still alive? I couldn't bear the thought that he, who had played such a large part in my life, might be no more. It had simply never occurred to me that he might come to harm. I was more used to thinking of him as an angel or phantom than as a man.

I wandered around, sadly, looking at his abandoned belongings, and leaving trails in the dust with my fingertips. The mirrors had been smashed – looking in them, I saw my own dirty and tear-streaked face looking back at me, appearing half whole and half broken – the same as his. I had my broken places too, I now knew. Mine were less visible.

I found, to my surprise, that I was singing softly – the same sad melody I had sung at my father's grave.

My song had been stilled for so long – and this had been another point of contention between Raoul and I. Without my teacher, my inspiration, it was difficult to sing, even for Raoul. I had sung for him alone for so many years.

I had no idea where to turn. I'd come all this way only to find emptiness – in the quest I'd set for myself, in this place…and in my heart. This place, deserted though it was, still held magic for me. I missed that magic, but I did know how to reclaim or replace it.

I did know one thing – I was exhausted. I walked up the stairs and entered the bedroom, up the route I'd been carried once before. Mice had made and abandoned a nest in one corner of the black swan bed, and they had pulled bits of stuffing out of the coverlet.

I shook out the velvet coverlet, coughing at the dust, lit a few candles in the bedroom and extinguished those in the main room.

Then, as I was soaked to the skin, I removed my boys' trousers and hung them over a chair to dry. I put my boots next to the bed, took off my cap, shook out my hair, and composed myself to sleep.

The last thing I did before sleeping, almost as an afterthought, was to remove the faded rose from next my heart and place it on the table beside the bed.


	6. Do I Dream Again?

That night, my dreams were sweeter than any I'd had since the fire. And in that place, in that bed, I slept more soundly than I ever had on the down mattress in the gilded bed at the chateau.

In sleep, he sang to me again. But he appeared as the comforting, protective angel of my childhood, for the first time in a great while. No fire, no nightmares, just peace and joy and stillness.

I slept long and deeply. And woke with my heart no longer empty, but filled with a strange delight and an unnamed yearning – until I remembered that he was gone. It was a dream, and nothing more.

But – I looked at the rose which had been withered and faded before I fell asleep – and it was gone. In its place was a freshly blooming deep red rose, tied with a new black ribbon.

What miracle was this?

I burst out of the bedroom, raced down the stairs, and ran to the main room. Candles were burning. I had not left them burning.

And there – at the organ – with his back to me –

I must have made a noise, though I do not remember speaking, for he turned around – and immediately turned away, smiling.

"Christine."

"Yes?"

"…Trousers."

"Oh!" Blushing furiously, I ran back up the stairs and resumed the lower half of the male apparel I was so unused to wearing. I scrubbed ineffectively at my face with my dry hands, but gave it up as hopeless, and made an attempt to comb my disordered hair with my fingers.

Finally abandoning my futile attempt at a toilette, I exited the bedroom at a more sedate pace, and walked towards him. My heart was hammering in my chest. I was afraid to breathe, lest he should turn out to be a dream after all.

At the organ, he was writing, as I'd seen him before, but it appeared to be text rather than music. His appearance surprised me – not because he was so changed, but because he was so unchanged from the way he had appeared at our first meeting. I suppose I had expected him to be in disarray, as he was at our last encounter, but he appeared calm and composed – if slightly more tired and careworn. He had resumed the mask and wore his familiar dressing gown over shirt and trousers. This time it was I who was in disarray. Our positions had reversed.

I could not think of a single thing to say.

He broke the silence.

"It's good to see you again," he said, finally, without looking up.

"And you."

There were a million questions I wanted to ask him; a million thoughts racing through my head, but I was half-afraid that if I spoke he'd disappear; shatter into pieces like the mirrors. I wanted to touch him and dared not, afraid he'd push me away.

"How is married life treating you?" he asked, calmly, as if we were taking tea in a society drawing room.

"I'm not married. Yet.."

He looked up at that, and those eyes that seemed to look into my soul met mine again, at last. I wondered what he thought of what he saw there. His gaze was like an arrow straight to my heart, and my knees buckled.

"I'm sorry," I said. I haven't eaten since yesterday. I believe it was yesterday." I was babbling. "It was foolish of me."

"Foolish to come here at all," he said tersely, providing a chair, for which I thanked him. I felt like an errant child being scolded. "The Opera House is no longer what it was. And this place – I no longer live here. I have not been back here since – " he left the sentence unfinished.

"What made you come?"

"I heard singing. I thought I was imagining it. I wanted to see."

"I'm glad."

He looked away again. "You slept a long time."

"You watched me?"

"Mm. Let me get you something to eat." He disappeared for a brief time, and came back with food and water. I broke my fast while he regarded me, and afterwards, I felt a bit better.

I was still at a loss for words. I blurted out the first thing that entered my head.

"There's something I've always wanted to ask you…"

"And that is?"

"What's your _name_?"

He smiled, that rare half-grin of his.

"Erik."

"Erik what?"

"What?"

"What's your family name, your surname?"

His face shut down again.

"I have no family name, just as I have no family. I came by the name Erik by accident. I no longer remember the name my mother gave me – if she even bothered with one." He'd spoken of his mother once before, and just as bitterly.

"I'm sorry."

"It's long in the past."

We looked at each other, and that look seemed to last lifetimes. I realized that he still had not touched me, and I wondered why I had noticed. But then I seemed to be doubly aware of everything about this man – everything he did, every word he spoke. I was surely in the grip of some strong emotion – fear? Anxiety? Longing? I was unable to put a name to it. I only knew that, despite everything that had happened, I wanted desperately to break down the wall that had grown up between us, and I couldn't think of any way at all to do it.

Or any reason why I should want such a thing.


	7. Twisted Every Way

There was a long silence before he spoke again: "And now, I have a question for you."

"That's fair," I acknowledged.

"What are you doing here?"

I looked down at my hands and took refuge in a partial truth. "Raoul sent me."

I could feel him tense up, even at a distance.

"I see. And why was that?"

"He wanted something."

"And why didn't he come himself?"

That, I thought, was a good question. Why hadn't he ever tried to retrieve the ring himself, instead of questioning me about it? I had the feeling that none of this was really about the ring at all – for any of the three of us. At least, not any more.

"Perhaps he thought you would only give it to me."

"And what is this thing that is so precious that he must send his dear wife after it?"

"I'm not his wife!"

"Excuse me. Fiancee," he said, mockingly.

"The ring," I blurted.

He raised an eyebrow. His face was shuttered to me now.

"Raoul was angry with me for giving the ring back to you. I came to get it. That is, I thought I ought to come. I thought – " I trailed off.

"And what does he offer in exchange?"

Suddenly, the dam inside me burst. "Nothing! I don't know! I don't know what I am doing, I've never known, and the two of you will be the death of me!"

I was in tears now, feeling foolish on more levels than I could name. Both men were surely laughing at me, using me as a toy in some game of masculine pride, and I was not privy to the rules. I got up and made toward the water again, nearly stumbling, blinded with tears of rage at myself. What a foolish child. Well, that was it. I was leaving without the ring. I had no idea where I'd go or what I'd do, but I couldn't stay here one moment longer.

I turned around to address him one final time – and ran directly into his chest. I hadn't realized that he'd been hard on my heels. This accidental contact was like a lightning bolt for both of us. Whatever I was going to say was lost. All I could hear was the blood pounding in my ears and my own sobs.

His arms went around me, awkwardly, yet instinctively, and I buried my face in his shirt.

"Christine…" he said, sounding like a man absolutely broken; undone by this unexpected contact. "Don't cry…"

All that show of pride so carefully built up was instantly torn down. The wall tumbled of its own accord. God, what were we doing to one another? What were we to one another that this should happen?

But then he was crying too. I could feel it. Lightly at first, and then in great, racking sobs that tore through his body. It frightened me, yet I felt the same. That frightened me more. And my arms went around him in turn.

We sank to our knees and held each other as if we would die the instant we let go; weeping – for all we'd had, for all we'd lost, for all we'd done, and all we'd never have; for hopes blighted, for dreams destroyed, for ourselves and for each other. Two children lost in the endless night.

"Don't let me go," I said, when I could speak.

His chin was resting lightly on my head, one hand stroking the length of my hair, the other still around me. It had taken him a few moments to find this position, unused as he was to holding a woman. In response, he tightened his grip a bit. He was still beyond words, but made an attempt to speak.

"I should tell you that I'm leaving," he said.

I loosed my grip on him and looked up. "Where will you go?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes. It matters a very great deal."

"Why?"

I had no answer for that – no answer I felt I could give, and he spoke again.

"It's something I have to do, Christine."

My head was in a whirl. I felt drained; as though I'd never be capable of rational thought again.

"If you must," I said, though, in truth, I hardly knew what I was saying.

I tightened my hold on the lapels of his dressing gown. One of my fingers strayed accidentally and touched his bare chest.

The accidental contact of my bare skin on his was electrifying for us both. I sucked my breath in, quietly, and his back stiffened instantly. I could feel him waiting. I could feel his heart beating, and my own heartbeat pounding in turn.

I moved the errant finger, meaning to remove it, but instead renewing the caress. He dropped his hold and jumped back as if I'd bitten him.

I couldn't bear the way he was looking at me. I didn't know what that look meant, but I felt as I had when I had removed his mask that first time – as though I'd clumsily ruined everything, crossed some forbidden, invisible boundary. And he'd reject me now as he had then. He was back behind his wall.

"I'm sorry!" I said. "It was an accident – I didn't mean to – is my touch then so abhorrent to you?"

"You have no idea," he said.

"Thank you greatly for your honesty," I said, stung.

The strangest mixture of emotions crossed the half of his face that I could see – sympathy? Pity? I realized that he was as lost as I was. This was no game for him, either. Neither of us had the least idea what we were doing. If I'd been sheltered emotionally, he'd been stunted. Our interactions were the blind leading the blind.

He fished in the breast pocket of his dressing gown. His face was streaked with tears. I could feel that mine was, too. We'd seen each other in tears too often.

"Here," he said.

He was holding out R.'s ring.


	8. Speech Disappears Into Silence

I have a hard time explaining the next part, even to myself.

I stood up, slowly, and took the ring from his outstretched hand.

I closed the distance between us, and looking directly into his eyes, I slipped the ring on the third finger of my left hand, as I'd done once before.

And kissed him directly on the lips.

I stepped back and saw that he looked as confused as I felt. I hadn't known what I was going to do in advance, nor why – only that I wanted to do it as I have wanted few things in my life. And I obeyed that instinct.

I kissed him again. This time, he returned it. His arms closed around me again, at first tentatively, then firmly. I reached up to caress his face, but my fingers struck his mask. I dared not remove it without permission; not again.

He reached up himself, but hesitated. "My face…"

"I know what you look like," I said.

That was enough. The disguise was discarded, as was the dressing gown, and I was in his arms again, kissing him running my hands over his face, through his hair, past his broad shoulders and down his strong back. He held me so tightly I feared I'd break. We clung to one another. We had been starving for each other.

When my knees buckled again, but from a different sort of hunger, he picked me up easily.

"Christine…?" he said, in a voice that sounded as though he were choking.

"It's all right," I said.

He carried me to the swan bed once again and set me down gently, all that strength tightly controlled so that he could put me down as lightly as a feather. I could feel him shaking.

I slid to one side, holding his eyes with me.

He looked at me with that nameless expression again, in which fear, wonder, gratitude, disbelief…and love, were commingled. Slowly, as if he feared I'd run away, he lowered his long frame down beside me.

"Look," I said. "I'm trembling…" I held out my hand to demonstrate. It fluttered like a leaf.

"I am, as well."

He kissed my hand as a gentleman formally kisses the hand of a lady to whom he has just been introduced, which made me smile. Then, turning it over, he lightly kissed the center of my palm.

I drew my breath in sharply, my eyes wide. It was an unexpected and romantic gesture. He continued the kisses to my wrist and up my arm, pushing up my sleeve as he went. He stopped at the soft inside of my elbow and did something with his tongue that made a small moan escape me.

He looked up, questioningly.

"Oh," I said. "Don't stop. Please." I drew my free hand through his hair again as he continued on to the upper part of my arm, and then moved to my throat, murmuring my name.

And now it was fire in my mind again. Not the fire of my nightmares, the fire of destruction; but the fire that cleanses and purifies; the heat of his breath, lips and tongue, on my throat, and then gently, softly, on the top button of my shirt. It was more than I could bear. I felt as though I were going to burn up from the inside. I pulled back.

He looked up. "No?"

"No – yes - I don't – what are we doing?"

I was in the grip of forces beyond my control, beyond my imagining, and if I'd been capable of thought, I might have thought that nothing R. had done had ever roused the same passions in me, which thought should have shamed me.

I was beyond shame. And beyond caring, but not yet beyond fear. He saw this.

"You're afraid of me," he said, sadly.

"No," I said. "I'm afraid of myself."

"You don't want me to – ruin you."

"Indeed, I don't want you to ruin me."

He began to turn away until I finished my thought: "I want you to make me whole. But I don't know why or how and I'm frightened of what I think and what I want and why what I think I should want and what I do want are so different."

Gently, he put a finger to my lips.

"Tell me you want me and it will be all right."

"That's one of the only things I do know."

"Tell me."

"I know that I want you."

"And I want you, here and now, in this moment, more than I have ever wanted anything," he said.


	9. Your Power Over Me

His hands on me this time were rougher, firmer in their grasp; more assured. I relaxed, glad to let him take the lead. I would follow where he led. I realized that in some ways, I always had.

He stood up and removed his shirt, then sat down on the edge of the bed to remove his boots. My hands traced the shifting patterns made by the muscles in his back. He was wonderfully and fearfully made. As always, the contact of my skin on his drove us both wild. He rounded on me and pressed me back into the bed. He began to unbutton my shirt, then became tired of the game and tore the whole thing off, tossing it to a corner of the room without even looking.

His eyes were riveted on me and he breathed as if he had been running. I lay, naked to the waist and shameless before his gaze, looking up at him.

"Be sure," he warned.

By way of answer, I took his large hand, kissed it, and placed it over one of my breasts. He fell on me with a cry that was almost a sob, and we made a hurried, desperate scramble to tear off the remainder of our clothing.

He looked at me again, and then we lost ourselves completely. For awhile, we were a thing of heat and movement, a ballet danced by fire itself. I remember surprising pain, even more surprising joy, and feeling like I'd found something I'd been looking for all my life but hadn't known until then. At long last, we were one. And in this there was no longer pain, fear, separation, or brokenness of mind, body or soul: only us.

We wept again, and laughed with the miracle of it all, lost and found at the same moment. Finally, a long time later, we both slept, exhausted. My sleep was deep and dreamless, a sleep of complete contentment.

When I opened my eyes, he was awake already, gazing at me. I started a bit, and again a curtain fell over his face.

"Shocked to find yourself in the bed of a monster?" he asked, a bitter tone in his voice.

"No," I said. "Startled to find myself in the bed of my lover. I've never had one before."

"A lover," he said, "Means someone you love."

"So it does," I said.

I turned him around to face me again, and kissed him deliberately on the sideof his face that he so hated.

Our embraces turned passionate once again, and it was another long while later before we finally emerged from the alcove where the bed was, he in trousers and unbuttoned shirt, barefoot; I with his velvet dressing gown wrapped around me.

All the rest of that day was the purest bliss. We behaved as though nothing existed outside of that place, as though we were the only two inhabitants of a world made just for us. He showed me the secret spring where he had bathed when he'd lived there; he had fetched fresh food at some point while I slept, and we feasted. We were both ravenous. We sang, played his instruments (many of which were sadly out of tune, but this bothered us not a whit), and he regaled me with the stories behind all of the objects he'd collected in this place. Some were 'souvenirs' from the theater itself, but others had surprising histories. I found his voice as riveting when he spun tales for me as I did when he sang.

Eventually, reality intruded. A small figurine of a dancing girl reminded me of Meg, and –

"Oh!" I said, "The Girys! I must get word to them to tell them I'm all right."

He put an arm out to prevent me from leaving. "I've sent a note."

"When did you do that?"

"While you were sleeping." He smiled. "Once again, you slept very soundly."

I blushed to the roots of my hair. "Whose fault is that?" I muttered, but he heard me.

"Can't imagine."

"What on earth did you say to the Girys?"

He paused, and quoted.

"'Do not fear for Miss Daae. The Angel of Music has her under his wing. Do not inform the Vicomte of her whereabouts. She will be returned to you when the time is right.'"

I laughed, in spite of myself. "You never!"

"I assure you, I did!"

"And did you sign it 'O.G.'?"

"Of course."

"I thought that the Phantom didn't exist any more."

"He doesn't, not really. I brought him back for a bravura appearance."

"Bravura indeed," I said. "I missed him…"

This made him sober a bit. "Christine…"

And something struck me, belatedly: "Wait. 'Returned to you when the time is right?' You're going to make me leave?"

He dropped his gaze, and I suddenly recalled what he had said about having to leave to do something important. And I sat down quite quickly.


	10. Our Strange Duet

"What does that mean?" I asked. "I don't want to leave you. Not now…"

He sat down and pulled me over onto his lap, speaking very gently, as though to a child.

"I would never make you leave. I don't want to ever be apart from you; not for one minute. But we can't stay here forever…the Opera House is ruined. I don't even live here now…and I spoke to you of something I must do."

I bit my lip. He was right, of course. I hadn't given a thought to consequences, to I after /I , but he clearly had.

"Oh, God," I moaned, burying my face on his shoulder.

"Regrets?"

"Right now I think I regret all the world more than I regret you."

"But you do regret?"

"No – oh, don't make me say things when I can't even think!" I said. He stroked my hair. Everything and nothing had changed. How was that possible?

"What will happen now?" I asked, helplessly. "Why must you go?"

He shifted me off his lap and set me down next to him, holding my hands in his.

"Christine…" he began again, "You know that my heart and my soul belong to you. They've been yours since I first laid eyes on you, since the first time I heard you sing. There's nothing on earth I'd rather do than to spend my life with you, starting with this moment - "

I began to interrupt, but he held a finger to my lips, quieting me while he continued.

"And I will, if you still want me to, when you've heard me out. The choice is always yours. But I made a commitment before had any idea that I – that we –"

He stopped, and began again.

"Our last encounter made look at the deep chasm which separates us. I've lived all my life as an outcast, an animal, a monster. I considered myself to be outside of humanity, and I behaved accordingly.

"I've done desperate things. You know of some of them."

I did not want to hear or think of this. He was opening an old wound. I made as if to pull away, but he held my hand firmly between his two.

"Please, listen. This is no easy thing for me to speak of.

"After you left, things went…badly for me for awhile. I had to come face to face with some of my inner demons. I thought long and hard about what you said about where my fault truly lay, and I decided, after much soul-searching, that I wanted to make an effort to rejoin humanity…to some extent. I want to atone in some measure for the past. I need to."

"You're going to the police? You can't!" They'd condemn him. I wished I hadn't said it. I felt sick. I broke free of his grip and jumped up, one hand at my throat.

He looked up at me through the hair falling over one half of his face, with that sardonic half-grin of his.

"I'm neither that brave nor that foolish. Nor, oddly enough, do I have a death wish. The past is the past, and I can't change it."

"Then what are you going to do?"

His face looked tormented. "I can't tell you. Not yet. I wish I could. I may be away for a month, maybe more. God, I wish I'd known – I should never – "

"Hush." It was my turn to soothe him. "Just tell me what you can."

"'l'll return to you as soon as I can. Sooner. I swear. I'd do anything not to have to go, and the irony is that it was wanting to be a better – man – for your sake that put me on this path," he looked at me with something like despair.

"Is it dangerous?"

"It might be."

I sat down again, slowly. I felt that I'd finally found my heart, only to have it broken.

He looked away, and said, roughly, "And you have a commitment, too."

I waited for him to finish.

"You're engaged to be married to the Vicomte de Chagny." It was difficult for him to get the words out; they seemed to stick in his throat.

"I can't – now – Oh, God. You know I can't."

He looked at me for the first time, with hope, yet still with fear in his eyes. "What will you do?"

"I'll break the engagement."

"It might not be as easy as you think."

"I only want you."

"If only that were clear, how much simpler it would all be. The fates, and the hearts, of two men rest in your hands, Christine."

I hated it, but he was right. I truly loved both of them. _My_ irony was that I had ended up engaged to the wrong man, my childhood friend; the man I now knew I loved like a brother. Raoul was very dear to me, and how I wished I could escape from the necessity of hurting him.

The man I now knew I loved passionately, with my heart and soul, was about to leave – for my sake. What an awful mess we had all made of things. I felt torn into pieces.


	11. The Light of Day

"How long do you have?" I asked.

"One day more."

I went to him, and I shall draw a veil over that last day. I may speak of it someday, but suffice it to say that we were happy.

And at the end of it, I knew that I had indeed to let him go for awhile, for his sake, as he had once let me go for mine. Once again, our positions were reversed.

I was dreading the necessary confrontation with Raoul. I'd betrayed his trust, as I had betrayed Erik's in the past, and I had not wanted to cause pain to either one.

"We've - _I've_ \- been very wicked," I chastised myself.

"Very," he said, smiling.

"That is not a helpful remark!"

"Well, then," he put his arms around me. He was preparing to return me to the Girys. Neither of us was anxious to part.

"This was perfect."

"This was."

"I can't regret it, and that's probably the wickedest thing of all!"

He kissed my hair. "I'm very glad to hear it, my unrepentant sinner."

We spent a little more time together, Erik and I. His name sounded so strange to me, yet I felt it was a precious gift he'd given me.

When the time finally came to leave that place, I once again drew the ring off my finger and closed Erik's hands over it. As before, I wanted to leave him something to remember me by. Not that he was likely to forget.

"What will you tell him?" he asked me. He had never liked to say Raoul's name.

"The truth – some of it. Assuredly not all – though I fear he may guess."

"Undoubtedly."

We made a vow there, in that dark place beneath the ruined Opera House. When he returned, he was to send the ring to me, wrapped in white paper, as a token that he was safe. If I was willing and able to meet him, I'd send it back to him, again wrapped in white paper. If I was unable to meet him, I would wrap it in grey paper. In this way the ring was to pass between us as a signal.

He made a further condition, which I found rmorbid and inexplicable, but he insisted.

"If I do not return alive and well," he said, "I will make arrangements for the ring to be sent to you, wrapped in black paper. You must keep it, and when the time draws near for you to join me in the afterlife, you must place it on my grave as a sign that you will soon join me…if I am still in your thoughts."

"But who will see it?"

"I'll know. Somehow I'll know. And I will do the same for you, should - " he was unable to complete his thought.

"That's ridiculous, and you should not speak of such things. It's bad luck."

"You refuse?" a bit sadly.

"No, I agree – on the condition that you cease talking about it immediately."

"Done." He said, and kissed me. Erik always had his strange fancies.

We went up to the daylight, which seemed far too bright to me, through a dryer, shorter route. Taking our leave of each other was agony.

"I won't sleep for worrying about you," I said.

"Nor I." He put a hand to my face,

"Erik – I – " I looked at him. It was so hard to get the words out.

"I know," he said simply, and then it was all right.

As I write this, I sit at the Girys', waiting for Raoul to come and meet me. The Girys made a great fuss over me, and had thankfully managed to keep the story of my disappearance out of the papers. I was no longer in the public eye, so this was less difficult than it had been on a prior occasion. Mme Giry I think guessed a great deal of the story; Meg, perhaps rather less. Their main feelings were of relief and delight at my safe return, for which I was profoundly grateful.

"Did you see him again?" Meg whispered to me, once, when we were private.

I squeezed her hand and nodded. She merely embraced me, and asked nothing further.

Mme Giry told me that R. had been frantic about not hearing from me daily. I confessed that I felt I was unable to become his Vicomtesse.

"I suspected that that might be the case," she said. She made no judgement, but let me know that I was always welcome there; and should I ever need it, a position would be kept open for me as a teacher at her school. Although I feel I do not deserve such kindness, my gratitude knows no bounds.

I needed, however, to tell the story, if only to myself – hence these pages. When I am finished, I shall hide them behind one of the rafters in the Girys' attic, where I hope they shall remain forever undiscovered. I have no wish to cause a scandal regarding the broken engagement for R. and his family.

It seems strange, yet somehow just, that if I helped Erik to find the man behind the monster, he helped me to find the woman behind the thoughtless girl. For now our paths lie in separate direction, our fates divided. I hope not for long.

And I must wait to be confronted with R. This will not be easy or simple, but real life never is. I have not a tidy ending to my story.

I have done much that is wrong, that others would, perhaps rightly, judge me harshly for.

And yet, for the first time in my life, I feel as though I am on the verge of attaining my soul's freedom.

C.D., Paris, 1871


End file.
